黑料不打烊

Para Site is delighted to present 鈥楬ow to be Happy Together?鈥�, curated by Zairong Xiang. Departing loosely from Wong Kar Wai鈥檚 Happy Together (1997), the exhibition enacts a critique of dualism and the questions raised by the dual and its split鈥攂etween intimate and antagonistic partners, between political entities, between 鈥榰s鈥� and 鈥榯hem鈥�, and even between 鈥業鈥� and 鈥榤e鈥�, transcending the logic of 鈥榚ither/or鈥� central to racial capitalism and colonial modernity. 

The primary setting for Wong Kar Wai鈥檚 queer Hong Kong cinema classic is Buenos Aires鈥攖he literal opposite side of the world from Hong Kong. Featuring over twenty artists from Hong Kong, its neighbouring localities, and Latin America, the exhibition alludes to Hong Kong鈥檚 clich茅d status as a para-site 鈥榖etween east and west鈥�, and 鈥榖etween tradition and modernity鈥�, in order to interrogate encounters both imagined and real between two seemingly distant ends of the world. It engages with a wide range of artistic practices that stay formally within the pas de deux yet promiscuously open up to an unexpected array of couplings and decouplings, spotlighting overlooked historical, social, and cultural connections between Greater China and the world to rethink possibilities of a queer happy-togetherness.  

The exhibition鈥檚 unique spatial design takes its cue from the Tai hexagram of I Ching, which is often used to represent the nine orifices of the human body. Central to the exhibition is the imagery of the orifice, and more broadly, the hole as a portal, which can function as a site for both concealment and revelation. For the first time since Para Site moved to its current location, all nine windows in the exhibition space will be unobstructed, allowing new pathways towards a queer cosmos of happy-togetherness to emerge. The exhibition invites the audience to ponder: How can we live at once with our differences, shared struggles, or even complicity with those we most resist? Can we still live together, happily?